[lit-ideas] Re: When Glory *Means* A Nice Knock-Down Argument: Grice vs. ...
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 22 Dec 2009 19:42:46 EST
In a message dated 12/22/2009 5:59:39 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
It's Wittgenstein who had a bogus PhD. with his senseless TLP.
---- In one of his letters to Malcolm, cited online in the paper by T. P.
Uschanov, Wittgenstein, who knew Toulmin, refers to Toulmin as "that man,
Toulmin".
GRICE. "The Uses of Argument" often fails
to redeem the vulgar arguers.
TOULMIN. Vulgar arguers, who do you mean?
GRICE. Your father.
TOULMIN. ??
GRICE. He was from London, right? I bet he used double negatives and all
that.
TOULMIN. Your point?
GRICE. Consider the argumentative analysis, along your lines of
"Everybody loves my baby"
"But my baby don't love nobody but me"
You repeatedly claim in your little book that the "not" of the
vulgar
arguers does not correspond to the " - " of Principia Mathematica.
If that were so, it would transpire, in your logic that my baby
loves _everybody_ but me.
TOULMIN. So?
GRICE. Plus, your account fails to distinguish a substitutional account
of quantification. In the non-substitutional account, from the
premise,
or datum, to use your silly jargon,
Everybody loves my baby, but my baby don't want nobody but me
it surely follows, deductively, that _I_ am my baby.
TOULMIN. How cum?
GRICE grabs some chalk and writes on the board:
Everybody loves my baby but my baby don't
want nobody but me.
__________________________
Therefore, I am my baby
TOULMIN. I guess some _grounds_ are missing.
GRICE. Exactly. But surely you won't have vulgar arguers bringing in
all the grounds for the silly things they say. You may just as well
bring in your grandmother.
What your account fails to note is that is piece of reasoning
[points to the diagram] is not, at least not for most of us, a
_complete_ piece of reasoning.
TOULMIN. And what _would_ complete it?
GRICE. Good question. Well, what completes things depends, notably,
on various circumstances. A COMPLETE piece of reasoning (or
"argument" if you prefer) would AT LEAST point out that
ONLY assuming a universal domain
of quantification for the quasi-logical constant,
'everyBODY'
-- but not a substitutional one --
IF everybody loves my baby,
AND _since_ my baby is _included_ in
the extension of 'everybody', we
obtain,
my baby loves my baby.
TOULMIN. Isn't that what the song implicates (to use your hateful phrase)?
GRICE. Yep. But that's not the end of the story. Appealing to one of your
sordid 'inference-warrants',
since my baby don't love nobody -- sic --
but me, I must be my baby".
TOULMIN kisses him in the cheek.
Quod erat demonstrandum!
Cheers,
JL Speranza
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